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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026299">Blinding Lights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CC99trialanderrorgirl/pseuds/CC99trialanderrorgirl'>CC99trialanderrorgirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky goes to get his boy, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Kissing, POV Bucky Barnes, Poetic, Romanticism, Self-Reflection, Sunrises, Use of imagery, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, hotel room, love realizations</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:55:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026299</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CC99trialanderrorgirl/pseuds/CC99trialanderrorgirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has been trying to be someone he's not. Alone in a hotel room in the Badlands, he realizes who he is - and who he loves.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blinding Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work is inspired by the gorgeous song "Blinding Lights" by The Weekend.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s something he would never admit to anyone: the Winter Soldier can’t sleep alone. Bucky lays in the big hotel bed. He’s surrounded by white sheets and opulence, but it all feels wrong. The thread count is too high, the mattress is too soft, the air is too cool. He’s bathed in darkness, except for a lone yellow pool of light coming from the lamp mounted to the wall beside the bed. There are fancy buttons to turn it on and off. He hates them.</p><p>The Winter Soldier used to sleep alone – in cryo, on missions, during the war. But since he woke up, he things haven’t been the same. There’s a big blonde lug that’s to blame. Bucky lies back, hands tucked behind his head, and closes his eyes. He tries to tune out the vaguely antiseptic smell of the hotel room – too many high-powered cleaning chemicals, too much fake-patchouli spray. It burns his sinuses, just a little. He doesn’t think it’s because of the serum. It’s more to do with…</p><p>He thinks about Steve. Steve with his bright blue eyes and messy blonde hair and wide shoulders. Steve with the crooked smile he’s had since Bucky met him at age six. Steve drawing with the artist’s hands he’s lived his whole life with – both pre and post serum. Steve running those delicate, powerful fingertips over Bucky’s wrist, his cheek, his collarbone.</p><p>They’ve kissed three times. Once when Bucky first came back to himself. Once when Steve seemed to lose control. And once where they both did, Bucky grabbing those Captain America lapels just as Steve turned and slammed Bucky into the elevator wall. They never did tell Tony how the dent got there.</p><p>Things were awkward for a while after that – still are, really. It’s part of why Bucky’s here, alone in a hotel room paid for by SHIELD. It’s why he agreed to attend all these SHIELD conferences and trainings in the first place. Partially to make Steve happy, partially to start making amends, but mostly just to get away from Steve and the confusing energy that’s been crackling between them since he woke up.</p><p>He’s been doing that a lot, actually. Trying to make amends, trying to please, trying…trying to be something – someone – he isn’t. Bucky Barnes isn’t an easy man – not the version that’s lying in this hotel bed in the year 2014 at least. He’s ornery, he’s sensitive – he’s also deeply loyal, irreverent, and feels everything at about a thousand percent. He’s not going to be a good dancing monkey, no matter how much SHIELD wants him to be. Still, he worries about all there is to live up to, and to atone for. It’s why he gets up everyday and pulls a straight-cut black blazer like Coulson’s on over his red Henley and attends these talks. It’s why he makes himself shake hands slowly, lightly – so the boots and holsters and dark jeans he can’t quite give up don’t make people too uneasy. He flutters his eyelids, catches a glimpse of his army surplus rucksack in the corner, his backpack propped up against the wall, the laptop charger he left out on the little breakfast table. He squeezes his eyes shut again.</p><p>The fact remains: Bucky can’t sleep. He hasn’t slept well since 1945, when Steve Rogers appeared like an avenging angel out of nowhere and then cuddled a raging Sergeant Barnes into submission after he fell apart in the wake of Zola. They shared a tent every night after that - slept curled together like they had in their Brooklyn flat. As if their connection could keep the world out. The funny thing is, in those moments, it did.</p><p>All of a sudden, it’s so clear. Bucky throws the downy hotel comforter off him, untangles his feet from the sheets. He hadn’t brought much with him, so it’s the work of a mere moment to pack his bag. He leaves cash on the nightstand along with his room key. Then he’s out the door, black boots eating up the carpet in front of him as he strides through the hotel lobby. It’s late – or rather, early, depending on how you look at it. Most of the staff is off duty; only a few valets, the concierge, and the girl in charge of night managing the front desk are awake. There are two elderly gentlemen dozing in the soft lobby chairs, magazines forgotten on their stomachs. Bucky strides past them, flipping his valet token at the youngest red coat at the same time as he clears the revolving doors. The kid – his nametag says Peter – fumbles the token before he hustles off to get Bucky’s car.</p><p>He stands there on the pavement, staring down the early morning sky. Sunrise is still a long way off, but the dawn light is starting to break across the mesa. It’s a beautiful sight: the flat planes and rocky crags of the badlands lit in a soft pink glow. It’s a time where nothing seems real except the truth. And Bucky’s truth is this: he needs Steve. He loves Steve. And he’s gonna go get him.</p><p>A sleek silver Porsche swings around the hotel’s circular drive. The valet gets out and stutters an awkward, “nice ride, man” before Bucky hands him a tip - $20, because he can afford it – and roars out.</p><p>His fingers beat a tattoo on the leather steering wheel. The car’s engine roars all around him. There’s no one else on the road, really. This time of day, it’s just truck drivers and Bucky, speeding through the badlands in his Porsche all alone. The roads are flat, no curve, so he can go as fast as he needs. There’s nothing for him in that life at SHIELD – playing at being something he’s not. He can’t go back to being judged day in and day out, and he can’t live his life to please a ghost. He can only please himself, and, hopefully, Steve. Steve and the man is he now, not who either of them were before.</p><p>It’s the moment before the aftermath, and Bucky is jittery with an urgency he can’t explain. He needs to escape where he’s been if he ever wants to get where he’s going. He focuses on the horizon. The dawn is beginning to light up the distant sky, pink fading into hues of pale yellow and burnt umber. Daylight is coming. He puts the car in overdrive.</p><p><em>Steve</em>, he thinks, <em>I’m coming</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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